Japan Is Going All In On Aircraft Carriers

The Izumo and the Kaga, Japan’s Helicopter carriers Newsline

National Interest: Japan Is Going All In On Aircraft Carriers Armed with F-35s

With the two ships and their new planes, Tokyo could be able to duplicate the United Kingdom's own 1982 campaign to retake the Falkland Islands from invading Argentine forces.

Japan's cabinet on Dec. 18, 2018 approved a plan to modify the Japanese navy's two Izumo-class helicopter carriers to embark F-35B stealth fighters.

The modifications should result in the Japanese fleet operating, for the first time since World War II, flattops with fixed-wing aircraft. With the two ships and their new planes, Tokyo could be able to duplicate the United Kingdom's own 1982 campaign to retake the Falkland Islands from invading Argentine forces.

"You can still do a lot with a small air wing," Eric Wertheim, an independent naval analyst and author of Combat Fleets of the World , told The National Interest . "Especially when it contains advanced stealth aircraft like the F-35B."

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The part of this article that I found interesting was this one ....

.... The U.S. Navy possesses 10 Nimitz- and Ford-class supercarriers. It plans to deploy six of the ships within 30 days of a crisis, plus at least one more within 90 days.

So in the event of a crisis, the U.S. Navy will deploy 6 aircraft carriers within 30 days, and at least one more within 90 days.